I work in publishing and I like to read things. Herewith: free association on books, nice things I ate, publishing, editing, and other nice things I ate.

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Write Your @ss Off Day

There was great enthusiasm to the Write Your @ss Off Day proposal. Awesome!

Some people who don't like to use the word @ss are calling it a Write-a-Thon, but I'm sticking with @ss because I enjoy the @sign.

Remember, this is a day (8 hours) devoted to your writing--that can constitute a number of activities, but should be about celebrating your creation. JES calls it an unbirthday for your writing.

With so many people playing, we're going to have some flexibility. So really, this next weekend, February 5-8 (to include Friday and Monday) will be Write Your @ss Off Weekend, and each participant can choose the day that works best with their sched (Friday 2/5, Saturday 2/6, Sunday 2/7, or Monday 2/8).

Just a note to anyone who wants to use the map: when you place your marker, PLEASE enter something like a name (even a pseudonym) to help everyone figure out which ones are real markers and which ones might have been dropped there by accident.

Thanks so much!

[Reminder -- if any questions or suggestions about using the map, you can email me at runningaftermyhat AT johnesimpson DOT com.]

I've been translating my @ss off (8-12 hours a day) every day for a week, and will continue to do so this weekend, so a whole day of pure writing next weekend would be pretty amazing, and a great way to storm my next project.

So far I'm the only one on the map representing the Middle East, I guess that means no meet-up for me...

This is exactly what I need kick my @ss into gear. I've been slacking on the writing this week. I'm signed up for Saturday. Maybe I'll try a practice run of it this weekend to get warmed up for next weekend. :)

Kelly Harmon had the right idea in her comment above: don't just DO it but celebrate it, jump up and down, and blog about it if/when you do it. (Or heck, even if you don't.) Kelly's own blog post about it was great!

(For each of you who's added your marker to the WYAO map, if you've got a blog you might also consider adding a link to your own blog post about how the day went. Just click on your marker and select the "Edit" button, then paste the URL/Web address into the Description field. I know I, for one, will be interested to see how it's gone for everyone.)

P.S. The map's currently got close to 70 locations marked, including the one for the first participant opting for a Tuesday WYAO Day, right square in the middle of the North American continent. Besides the sites mentioned earlier, it now shows participants in Alaska, Okinawa, Baghdad, and nowhere-in-particular in both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.

Calling out from West Sumatra, Indonesia, where I'm living in a little village helping with post-earthquake reconstruction. I'm looking forward to being with a virtual community doing that which I (we) love best!

I'm going for Saturday too. Which, as I am in Japan, happens to have started 3 hours ago. Should I stay up and start writing, or go to sleep and try and get up early enough to have a long and productive day? Decisions, decisions...

I pick Sunday the 7th of Feb. I did seven hours last Saturday, and this is a good motivator to make sure I follow up and keep writing! I want to finish this draft by the end of Feb and I'm not even halfway through yet so I need to write my @ss off.

It doesn't have to be 8 hours all at once, does it? Because that's not really how I write. I tend to write about 50 words, then watch a half an hour of tv. Then I write 50 more words, then check my Facebook and get distracted leaving comments on statuses for the next hour. Then I write 50 words, and go find something to munch on. Etc, etc, etc.